


a taste of home

by joshllyman



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Canon Compliant, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, M/M, Nonbinary Akaashi Keiji, Nonbinary Character, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:49:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29796294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joshllyman/pseuds/joshllyman
Summary: Tetsurou had loved everything about recruiting trips when he was younger: the train rides through the countryside, getting to travel all over, meeting all kinds of new people and players. Now he’s getting too old for these trips, he muses, too attached to the idea of home, which isn’t the four walls surrounding his bed so much as it is the person waiting for him in it. As boring as a desk job would be in comparison, it may be time for him to find something that would keep him in Tokyo more often than not.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Kuroo Tetsurou
Comments: 5
Kudos: 50





	a taste of home

**Author's Note:**

> this was originally written as a ko-fi request for [ever after zine](https://twitter.com/hqeverafterzine). we're still taking requests so consider dropping one on us!!

Tetsurou slips into bed at seven fifteen on a Saturday morning, freshly home from eight days of recruiting out of town and beyond exhausted. He never manages to get any damn sleep on these trips, and certainly not on the trains home. 

Keiji grumbles as the mattress dips behind them.

“Hey,” Tetsurou mumbles, slipping his arm around his partner’s waist. He kisses the back of Keiji’s head. “I’m home.”

Keiji hums, just a monotone note of assent. 

“Did you get home before midnight?”

Two notes, the second lower than the first. A negative.

“Tenma kept you late again?”

“Tetsurou,” Keiji sighs. “I love you very much and I have missed you, but I will kick you out of this bed if you speak another sentence.”

Tetsurou snorts and holds Keiji close. “I’ve missed you, too.”

“Shut up and spoon me about it.”

“Yes, boss.”

They do lace their fingers together with Tetsurou’s, though, which is nice. Tetsurou kisses their neck once and settles in to go to sleep.

Except that after a few moments, he realizes that the fabric covering Keiji’s stomach isn’t one of their normal sleep shirts. He opens his eyes and lifts his head; Keiji has stolen and is wearing one of Tetsurou’s old sweatshirts, one of the rattier ones that he wears around the house when it’s chilly. He’s certain he’d thrown it in the laundry before he left.

“Sleep, Tetsu,” Keiji admonishes.

“You’re in my sweatshirt,” Tetsurou says, somewhat dumbly.

Keiji doesn’t answer for a few moments. They flip over and blindly bury their face in Kuroo’s neck.

“Smells like you,” they mumble.

Tetsurou buries his nose in Keiji’s hair and inhales deeply, trying to cover the way a lump rises into his throat at their words. He kisses the top of their head and is pleased to receive a grumble in response. 

He drifts in and out of sleep for an hour or so, never really losing consciousness but not quite awake, either. He’s aware the whole time of Keiji’s weight in his arms, solid and soothing, comforting in exactly the way he needs after being gone for so long. 

He’d loved everything about recruiting trips when he was younger: the train rides through the countryside, getting to travel all over, meeting all kinds of new people and players. Now he’s getting too old for these trips, he muses, too attached to the idea of home, which isn’t the four walls surrounding his bed so much as it is the person waiting for him in it. As boring as a desk job would be in comparison, it may be time for him to find something that would keep him in Tokyo more often than not.

“If you’re gonna think that loud, get out of my bed,” Keiji mumbles.

Tetsurou kisses their forehead once more. “I’ll have coffee in fifteen.”

“I will consider being nice to you then.”

“I won’t count on it.”

“That’s for the best.”

Tetsurou’s feet hit the floor, and he sighs as he stretches his arms over his head. He’d been so tired and still couldn’t get any sleep. He doesn’t think he and Keiji have plans today, but he’ll see if they’re alright with taking it easy, maybe staying home and “watching a movie” (Netflix and chill isn’t really in their vocabulary. Keiji ends up doing crosswords with their glasses slipping down their nose, and Tetsurou ends up asleep with his head in Keiji’s lap). 

The routine of making a cup of coffee automatically brings a little more alertness to Tetsurou’s system. The beans are already ground (which is good, because if he had to use the grinder right now it would be two cups before Keiji smiled), and he dumps them into the pot carefully. The hum of the machine wakes him up a little more. He pulls Keiji’s comically large mug from the sink and washes it. The purchase of it had been a joke after the first time Tetsurou spent the night at Keiji’s. Keiji had warned him they were, in their own words, “kind of an ass” in the mornings before caffeine, but Tetsurou had still underestimated the power of their wrath. These days he takes it with a grain of salt, but back then he’d been terrified that the wrong move before he pressed a mug into their hands would push him firmly back into single territory. He’d been shopping with Bokuto when he’d seen it, and Bokuto had commented that Keiji would probably finish a cup that big in ten minutes or less. Tetsurou hadn’t hesitated one bit before grabbing it and adding it to his basket. Bokuto had laughed and laughed, but, y’know, joke’s on him—Tetsurou and Keiji are still together seven years later.

Arms wrap around him, still bedwarm. “Tetsurou.”

“Still got about five minutes, love,” Tetsurou murmurs.

“Tetsurou.”

He lowers his voice even more. “I’m sorry, I can only make it go so fast—”

“ _ Tetsurou. _ ”

Tetsurou pauses and blinks, looking down into Keiji’s face. “Yes?”

Keiji’s face contorts in a deep frown. “I have a gray hair.”

Tetsurou purses his lips in an attempt to keep his laughter in. “Just one?”

A huff. “Well, I don’t know. I only found the one.”

“Do you want me to search for the rest?”

Keiji slaps his stomach gently. “You gave me a gray hair and now you’re  _ joking about it _ —”

“Wait a minute, how did I become responsible for the premature graying of your hair—”

“Premature my  _ ass,  _ Kuroo Tetsurou, you stressful man—”

“I haven’t even been here the last eight days—”

“Exactly!” Keiji’s jaw sets, their teeth gritted tight. “You haven’t been here, and I’ve woken up alone for eight days, and come home to an empty apartment for eight days, and you have the gall to show up and refuse to stay in bed for more than an hour!”

Tetsurou softens. He wraps his arms around Keiji’s waist and huffs a sigh against their forehead. “If I recall correctly, you kicked me out of bed.”

“I didn’t, I told you to leave if you were going to think. I wanted you to go back to sleep.” They reach up and run a thumb over the bags beneath Tetsurou’s eyes. “You look like you haven’t slept since you left.”

“I haven’t, not very much.” Tetsurou lets his eyes fall shut as Keiji’s hand moves to cup his jaw. “I was going to ask to stay in today, anyway.”

“I cleared our plans for the weekend. I’m not giving you up that easy, not when I just got you back.”

Tetsurou’s lips curve up into a small smile. “I’m sorry I gave you a gray hair. If it makes you feel better, I think you’ll be a very sexy grandparent figure.”

When Tetsurou opens his eyes after Keiji doesn’t respond, he finds them scowling at him. 

“You are very, very lucky I haven’t had caffeine yet,” they say slowly. “I don’t have the energy to pull your intestines through your ears the way I’d like to right now.”

“That...is a hell of a visual, Keiji.”

“You can blame Tenma-san. His descriptions are very vivid.”

The coffee maker finishes, and Tetsurou unravels himself from Keiji just enough to pour the entire thing into their mug. When he presses it into their hands, they fix their eyes on him as they take a long, slow sip. 

“I love you?” Tetsurou offers.

Keiji takes another sip, sets the mug on the counter, and tugs Tetsurou down by the back of his hair for a kiss. They taste bitter and wonderful and he’s missed them so, so much.

“I think I’m going to ask for a change to a different department,” Tetsurou says when they let him go. They stay close, their nose smashed into his, the steel blue of their eyes boring intensely into his own. “Something where I can stay home more.”

Keiji softens, just a little. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

“I’m not,” he assures them. “I’m doing it for me. I’m selfish. Can’t stand to be away from you anymore.”

Keiji watches him for another moment longer before kissing him again, and Tetsurou’s never been so happy to taste home in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> my socials can be found [here](https://joshllyman.carrd.co)


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